


we must be killers

by jynersq



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-05-11
Packaged: 2018-06-07 18:03:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6818491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jynersq/pseuds/jynersq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fitz killed a man, and May wants to talk about it. However, talking about it is the last thing Fitz wants to do. Drabble, post-<i>Turn, Turn, Turn</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we must be killers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [awkwardspiritanimals](https://archiveofourown.org/users/awkwardspiritanimals/gifts).



> I feel like this little story has been brewing somewhere in the back of my mind for two years or so, and now it's finally made its way out into the world. The exact timeline is fuzzy here, but it takes place after _Turn, Turn, Turn_ in the motel where the team stayed. 
> 
> Written as a labor of love for Zoe (awkwardspiritanimals), who is great and who puts up with me for some reason, even though I haven't seen _The Sandlot_.

“We need to talk.”

Fitz nearly jumps out of his seat at May’s voice, slamming his knees into the underside of the shoddy motel desk. 

She sounds like she’s right behind him, but, when he whirls around, she’s just outside his room, leaning into the doorframe. Deceptively casual-- or, perhaps, actually casual. It’s difficult to tell with her.

“For heaven’s sake, May,” he gets out, once he can breathe properly, hand pressed to his thumping heart. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a minute,” she says, unruffled. “Can I come in?”

He releases a sigh, knowing she’ll do as she pleases, anyway. “Sure,” he says, reaching down to pick up the pens he’d knocked off the desk.

She approaches slowly, pauses only a foot or two away. He’s somewhat surprised she’s even come that close, considering how she typically prefers to keep a significant spatial buffer between herself and the rest of the team. Her proximity sets him slightly on edge-- he’s not sure he’s ever been truly alone with May, and he’s not sure what it signals. She doesn’t say anything for a few moments, just looks him over with a steady gaze, arms folded.

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat, having to look up to meet her eyes. Though she’s not tall, she seems monumental in front of him, solid and impassible.

He clears his throat. “What, er-- What is this about?” Then, after a pause, “If this is because of the curtains, you should know that--”

She suppresses a snort. “It’s not about the curtains.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Okay…”

Stiffly, May lowers herself to sit on the edge of the bed, the mattress protesting even under her negligible weight. She folds her hands in her lap, the picture of poise. He feels his heart speed up in anticipation.

“You killed that man,” she says, finally.

Fitz sucks in a breath. This is the last possible thing he would’ve assumed she’d speak to him about. He clears his throat, toeing the carpet pattern beneath him with one sneaker. “And?”

“You killed him,” she repeats, not unkindly.

He pauses. “I’m fine.”

“You're not,” she says.

He sighs. “May, I’m all right. Really.”

She shakes her head. “Taking a life is never easy. Especially the first time.”

He swivels awkwardly back and forth in his chair. Sometimes, he thinks this woman is more of a mystery to him than when he’d first met her. Unlike practically everyone else -- Jemma, Skye, Coulson -- with May, the more he learns, the less it seems he really knows. “That man would have killed you,” he says, with a small shrug. “So I made sure he didn't. That’s all.”

She leans in. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

One side of his mouth quirks up. “First of all, it’s weird that you would even know that, but I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“It’s my business to know,” she says.

“Secondly,” he continues, folding his arms over his chest, leaning back in the chair. “How do you know _I’m_ not sleeping unless _you’re_ not sleeping, either?”

She leans in closer, unwilling to be deterred. “Don’t be smart.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I’m always smart.” His attempts to deflect go unnoticed.

“You need to talk about it,” she says, levelly.

“To you?” Fitz’s brows draw together. Well-intentioned as she might be, May’s the absolute last person he’d have thought would be concerned about this particular situation. But, he supposes, she is the only one who knows about it. Maybe she feels responsible.

“To anyone. But you need to talk about it.” She pauses. Then, with a private smile, like she’s telling herself a inside joke, “Maybe not to Coulson. Just a suggestion. But I’m not going to leave until you promise me you will talk.” To show she means it, she toes off her heeled boots, leans back on her hands on the thin comforter.

Fitz huffs out a breath. “And what if there’s really nothing to talk about?”

“Tough.”

He frowns at her. She simply raises an eyebrow.

They sit in tense silence for a minute or two. Then, five. He tries to go back to the scientific journal he’d managed to bring with him, but he can’t focus. He can feel her watching him. Ten minutes. He reads the same line five times, absorbing nothing.

When it's clear she's willing and more than capable of waiting him out, he swivels his chair back around. He pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. “Fine.” He sighs. “I don’t feel good about it, all right?”

May folds her hands in her lap. “How so?”

“I-- I don’t feel good about it.” He swallows, drumming his fingers restlessly on the arm of the chair. “But I don’t regret it, either. I don’t know.”

The only thing he knows that when he closes his eyes, he sees the muzzle flash in the dark, hears the nameless HYDRA soldier suck in a single gurgling breath, like a gasping fish. Feels the solid weight of the gun in his hands -- the real gun, with real, life-ending bullets -- before he tosses it away.

But what other choice had he had?

Foolishly, he feels the backs of his eyes begin to burn. He blinks, hard, confused and ashamed.

“I understand if you blame me, Fitz,” May says, carefully. Her steady gaze makes him feel claustrophobic.

He shakes his head. “It's not that.”

She inclines her head, as if to say, _Then, what?_

He thinks back to all his years of attending mass. _Thou shalt not kill_ had always seemed a particularly clear commandment, pretty cut-and-dry. He’d struggled with covetousness, with swearing, with dozens of other things, but he’d never had any particular trouble with the commandment against murder. Even after he’d joined SHIELD, where he’d been closer to death than he’d ever been -- both witnessing and nearly experiencing it -- he hadn’t lost sleep over it, even when he had known that May had killed that day to protect them. He believed, truly, that what she did was necessary. 

But what about when it was him? When he held the gun, what then?

“It’s just--” He ducks his head. “What would my mum say?” 

He can imagine the look in her soft blue eyes, something caught between worry and disappointment. She’d raised him better than this.

She pauses. They sit in silence for a moment, and he tries not to twitch. Then, “I think,” she says, finally, “her primary concern would be your safety.”

“And Jemma?” he asks. He’s too nervous to look at her, too afraid of what she might say.

May’s mouth twitches. “I _know_ her primary concern would be your safety.”

Fitz smiles wanly. “Maybe so.” Then, smile falling, “I just-- I hate this. I hate HYDRA.” He knows it sounds childish, but it’s is the only word he can find anywhere near strong enough to describe what he feels for the people who’d uprooted his team, his best friend, his family. Who’d torn them -- and him -- apart. 

She nods. “As do I.”

“And, what’s more,” he continues, slowly, “I think I could’ve-- I didn’t have to kill that guy.”

She squints at him. “What?”

He looks down at his hands. “I could’ve shot him in the leg. The arm, maybe. I didn’t have to kill him.” He feels defeated. Somewhere in the back of his mind, it frightens him that he could strike so quickly, nearly without thinking. It hadn’t occurred to him to shoot to injure until afterward. The scene plays for him in a series of high-definition photographs: May, with her fists up, HYDRA soldier, muzzle flash. The thud of the man’s body against the floor is something he’s sure he’ll never forget.

May leans forward to better see into his face. “You and I both know that wouldn’t have stopped him,” she says, low. The intensity in her voice startles him. “What you did stopped him. Permanently. He won’t be able to hurt anyone again. You killed him, yes. But in doing so, you saved my life. And probably more.”

Fitz blinks, taken aback. That’s possibly the longest string of words she’s spoken to him at one time. He opens his mouth to argue, but is interrupted by the loud splash of pool water on concrete outside. He and May turn their heads just in time to see Skye go splashing into the deep end, blissful in the mid-afternoon heat.

A moment later, he sighs, leaning back in his chair. “I was raised to believe that life and death aren’t up to us,” he says. May turns to look back at him. “Er, regular people. My mum always told me that sort of thing was God’s domain.”

She doesn’t say anything. Just inclines her head, listening.

“And, I’m worried-- I’m worried I did it because I wanted to,” he continues, quickly, jiggling his knee up and down. “I mean, not consciously. But I’m worried I did it because I was curious. Scientists-- Our driving force is curiosity. We want to know. I’m afraid I did it, deep down, because I wanted to know what it would be like.” He pauses for breath. “To shoot someone, I mean.”

Surprisingly, May cracks a smile. 

He frowns. “What?”

She shakes her head, leaning forward so that her elbows on her knees.  
“That’s just not you, Fitz,” she says, simply. “If anything, you’re a hero. Not a killer.”

_A hero._ He flushes, feeling both acute discomfort and something close to gratitude. “But, er. May, are you sure?”

May’s eyes are as fond as he’s ever seen them. For a moment, he can see through the stoic face in front of him to to the woman he’s heard she was before the trauma, the one who played office pranks and wanted to be a mother. Maybe they’re not as separate as they seem.

“The fact that you’re asking me that question,” she says, “is how I know I am.”

He lets out a long breath, one he hadn’t known he was holding. He suddenly wants to ask more questions, impossible questions, but fears he’ll ask one too many and she’ll retreat into herself again, slipping behind her careful façade.

So, he settles for the most pertinent.

“Do the--” He stumbles over the word. “The dreams-- do they go away?”

She meets his eyes steadily, undisturbed by the swift change in topic. “Sometimes. But it can take a long time.”

His mouth quirks, half-disappointed, half-expectant. “All right. Thanks.”

“It does get easier, Fitz,” she says. “I promise you that.” Sensing the natural conclusion of the conversation, she stands. “You’re not a bad shot,” she says, lower, resting a hand briefly on his shoulder. “If you want to get better, let me know. I’m up most mornings at five.”

He nods. “Thanks,” he says, again. He’s almost certain that, no matter how many times he says it, it won’t be enough to cover what she has done for him.

Satisfied, she nods, then heads for the door.

“And, May?” he calls, just before she steps out.

She turns around. “Yes?”

“I’d do it again.” He’s standing now, too. Chin lifted, shoulders squared.

She smiles again. A little sadly, this time. “I know.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments and constructive criticism are always appreciated! Thanks for reading.


End file.
